Re: “Free graffiti walls elaborate prank, city says” (Feb. 11, page 3)

In response to Free graffiti walls elaborate prank, city says, published February, 10, 2010.

Pat Lazo’s comments are a clear indication that the only people who benefit from legal graffiti walls are the few and the proud who would actually use them. Everyone you meet can think of 50 things wrong with Winnipeg, but you will typically find that absent from those lists is a complaint that our graffiti isn’t pretty enough – more likely, they’d say that our graffiti isn’t gone enough. Why would they want to see even more self-indulgent versions of it all over public property?

If the owner of a private establishment wishes to open their exterior walls to graffiti, that would be much more acceptable than making the civic government the arbiter. Unless they do, the worst-case scenario would be graffiti artists sticking to really big sheets of paper, which would be no loss to the rest of us.

– Jess Chapman

Published in Volume 64, Number 20 of The Uniter (February 25, 2010)